Lunch for one

Dear Heloise: I’d like to have a recipe for lunch — something very tasty, but something that won’t make me feel stuffed. I work from home and live alone, so I just need a recipe for one, and these are hard to find. — Melody F., Vista, Calif.

Melody, here is one of my all-time favorite light lunches. It’s filling without making you feel heavy or sleepy. It’s also in my book “In the Kitchen With Heloise.”

HELOISE'S STUFFED AVOCADO WITH CRABMEAT

½ avocado

3 ½ ounces crabmeat 1 tablespoon Romano

cheese

1 tablespoon breadcrumbs,

plus extra for topping 1 tablespoon chopped

fresh parsley

1 pat of butter Chopped green onion (tops included)

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Remove the pit from the avocado. Cut a thin slice from the bottom of the avocado so that it will sit firmly on a plate. Mix the crabmeat, cheese, breadcrumbs and parsley. Fill the hollow of the avocado with the mixture, piling it into a rounded peak but keeping it within the outside shell. Sprinkle with some of the extra breadcrumbs, and top with the butter. Place on a sheet of foil and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle with chopped onions before serving.

— Heloise

Better peanut butter

Dear Heloise: If you purchase the fancier or organic peanut butters, you’ve probably noticed that the oil often is separated at the top of the jar. One way to solve this problem is to put the OPEN jar of peanut butter into the microwave for a minute. This will soften the peanut butter and allow you to stir the oil into it. — Robert B., via email

Lumpy table salt

Dear Heloise: My table salt containers often would become blocked by the table salt forming clumps. I transferred the clumped salt into a gallon-size plastic bag. Then I used a meat mallet to pound the salt into granular form, and after that I transferred the salt back into its rigid storage container. — Mark B., via email

Mark, you also can use a few grains of rice in a saltshaker to keep salt in its granular state and prevent it from clumping. — Heloise

Cake and ice cream

Dear Heloise: Instead of using a recipe that requires a lot of cutting and shaping to make an ice-cream cake, wouldn’t it be easier to use a jellyroll pan, spread with softened ice cream, top with a baked layer of cake, wrap and freeze? Then remove before serving, and cut it into slices. If you had enough cake, you could alternate ice-cream layers and cake layers. — Joyce L., via email

Back to the basics

Dear Heloise: My high school home economics teacher taught us to take everything we’ll need to prepare a meal or snack out of the refrigerator at once. This minimizes the amount of cold air going out and warm air going in. — Mary H., Arlington, Va.

Household Hints

Send a money-saving or timesaving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, TX 78279-5000, or you can fax it to 1-210-HELOISE or email it to Heloise@Heloise.com. I can’t answer your letter personally but will use the best hints received in my column.